Intro

Welcome to our Big News section for all the latest news concerning Military Disability.

We'll do our best to keep you up to date on everything that could affect your disability. Since the majority of our news will cover legal issues that can be dragged out for a long time, if you'd like an update on an issue, let us know, and we'll do what we can.

Please feel free to comment and submit questions. We want to give you the information you need, so help us by letting us know what you want to know.

Monday, February 16, 2015

The Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans (SAV)
Act was signed into law on February 12, 2015.

As we reported on November 24, 2014, the law is named for
Sgt. Clay Hunt, a decorated Marine who became a veterans’ advocate after
leaving the military in 2009.He
suffered from PTSD but was given only a 30% rating from the VA. Getting the
mental health care he needed was difficult, time-consuming and frustrating. He appealed his rating, but the VA lost his paperwork. After enduring the hassle of
submitting it all again, he took his own life in 2011.Just weeks after his death, the VA approved
the appeal and awarded him a 100% rating. Tragic.

This SAV Act will require the VA Secretary to establish a
website that will centralize information about VA mental health services and
update it at least once each 90-day period.

The law authorizes the VA to begin a 3-year pilot program to
recruit additional psychiatrists by offering to repay their psychiatric
medicine-related education loans.

The
VA will also establish another 3-year pilot program to assist service members with
the transition from active duty to veteran status while improving access to
mental health care. This program will be put into effect at a minimum of 5
Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs). Each program will include a
community-oriented veteran peer support network and a community outreach team
for all the medical centers in each of the VISNs.

The
new law will give the VA Secretary the authority to work with nonprofit mental
health organizations on suicide prevention among veterans and to select a VA
director of Suicide Prevention Coordinator to oversee the program.

The
law also allows combat vets access to VA medical care—including hospital and
nursing home care—for conditions that are not service-connected for an
additional year, as long as the veteran was discharged or released from active
duty between 1 January 2009 and 1 January 2011 and did not enroll in the VA
health system for such care during the 5-year eligibility period after their
discharge.

In
addition to these main points, the law also establishes ways to monitor the
VA’s progress as it implements these new provisions.

We
are encouraged to see steps being taken to help our veterans who struggle with
these very real issues.We sincerely
hope that this new law will be effective in preventing and ultimately
eliminating these terrible tragedies.

If
you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, help is
available.We encourage you to reach out
to the Veteran’s Crisis Line at 1-800-273-8255 or www.VeteransCrisisLine.Net or to any of the many local suicide crisis lines.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

The VA has just announced that it is currently assembling a
new technical team to create a new digital service as part of the major
overhaul we reported on last November. The VA Digital Service will be focused
on providing a wide variety of services to over 8 million veterans, including
having access to all of their VA benefits by creating a single online account.

The VA is now accepting applications for positions on this
new technical team. The positions range from software engineers, operations,
and designers to system administrators and DevOps. They are especially
interested in people with the following experience:

“+
Building high-performing engineering teams from scratch

+ Migrating from legacy systems to modern
infrastructure

+ Healthcare technology”

We
know that many of you have the skill sets the VA is looking for. This is a good
opportunity for not only a great job with great pay but also to help build a
system that will directly benefit you and your fellow veterans.

For
more information, go to http://www.va.gov/ds/, scroll past “Become a
Founding Member,” and click on “Apply Today.” This will take you to a page with
full job descriptions and information on how to apply.Let’s keep our veterans employed!

Monday, February 2, 2015

Back in November, we reported that the VA was planning to
reorganize its many programs into “one-stop” regions under the MyVA Initiative.
Last week, the VA announced the boundaries of the 5 new MyVA regions.
The new regions will allow veterans to more quickly and easily access VA
benefits and services in their local area.

The overall goal for the MyVA Initiative is for the VA to
become more centered around veterans and their needs, making it easier for them
to get the information, care, and benefits they need by combining access to
every benefit (medical care, retirement, housing, education, etc.) under one
roof instead of having different facilities/call lines for each benefit.

The MyVA Initiative will also make things easier on our
veterans by allowing lower level VA employees to perform higher tasks, like
call center agents suspending or resuming benefits, thus limiting the number of
steps it takes the veteran to perform these tasks.

The goal is to have this reorganizational phase of the MyVA
program up and running by the end of June 2015.

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About Me

As a retired Air Force Colonel and physician, I am a Military Disability and VA Disability specialist. As a physician, I have specialties in preventive medicine, occupational medicine, and healthcare administration. While on active duty, I had direct responsibility over preventive medicine for all military members in deployed environments and contingency operations. Since retiring, I have worked as a contractor for the Physical Disability Board of Review (PDBR), reviewing military disability cases, and for the VA, performing C&P exams.